Reverse Powers
by Jillcb
Summary: This is set in Merlin's childhood. It tells of his time with Will and one incident in particular with Old Man Simmons. It is mainly friendship, but also goes through Merlin's pain as he gets use to having his powers.


Reverse Powers

Merlin hadn't seen Will in almost a week. His mother Hunith had explained best she could, that since Will had lost his father, Will's mother needed as much support as Will could give her. Merlin had sat down a lot and contemplated just what his friend was going through. He found it hard to know what it was like to be without a father, as Merlin had never known one. But if he even so much as tried to imagine what it would be like without Hunith, it upset him so much that he immediately had to stop. Therefore he reckoned he understood that life was pretty rough for his friend just now.

With autumn coming to its end Merlin spent a lot of time in the woods near his home, collecting wood for the coming winter. He loved his time spent outside as he felt completely at one with his surroundings. It was something he could never quite explain to anyone else, even his mother. She would nod and do her best to understand, but Merlin knew deep down, she could not appreciate totally why he felt so at home outside. Every change of mood, the difference in the direction of a sudden breeze, the way nature responded to every change of season. Merlin felt at ease with it all. There was a time when he felt a fear of the outdoors. But now that he was beginning to understand his powers, he suddenly felt more at ease with the world generally. There was a time when his powers made him feel like a monster, but now he felt as though he was beginning to control them and not the other way around. All of a sudden he could not wait to test what he could do. Every day was a journey to see what he could achieve, an adventure that only he knew about.

He would often take short cuts with his chores now. Why spend endless hours collecting firewood, when he could bring a branch down in seconds? More time to spend on honing his skills. Of course he had to be careful no one else saw. Only his friend Will knew of Merlin's powers, not that his mother was aware of that. Merlin truly feared Hunith ever finding out that Will knew. But Merlin knew that Will would never tell anyone, they had always looked after one another, and always would. Having collected enough wood Merlin sat down and put his new powers to the test.

His latest discovery had been, being able to move objects. He had noticed it by accident, as his mother complained about his room. He had sat on his blanket on the floor and fed up, his eyes had coloured and before he knew it, numerous objects had taken flight. Mesmorised by the sight, at first he'd been stunned, then he suddenly panicked and everything had fallen onto the floor, much to his shame. Hunith had come running in wondering what had happened, to be greeted by the sight of her son, on the floor picking up bits and pieces of various objects. One a vase that had been a present from his Grandmother.

"Oh Merlin what happened?" she cried

"I'm sorry it just happened every thing just took off, I didn't even do anything." He had said, unsettled and upset at the same time.

Whenever anything had happened like this Hunith would hug her son to her, kissing the top of his head, Merlin would snuggle into her embrace feeling safe and secure, and screw his eyes tightly shut, as if afraid to open them in case something else happened. Yet once after the initial shock Merlin would take his time to attempt to understand what had happened to him. To try and repeat it on a smaller scale so he could learn to keep his powers in his control.

Having spent some time forcing his axe to take flight Merlin reluctantly made plans for home. He put the wood in a sack and slowly walked back in the direction of home. Suddenly a voice stopped him in his tracks.

"Merlin what are you doing?"

"Hi Will, how you doing?" Merlin asked going over to Will. Will was usually outgoing and loud, Merlin couldn't help but notice his friend was a lot quieter and also looked sad.

"My father died, two weeks ago." Will replied sitting down on a stump of a tree and throwing a pebble into the nearby stream.

"I heard I'm sorry. I wanted to go round and see you, my mother said to give you some space."

Will nodded. "We are having to move to somewhere smaller. In fact I have to go home and pack shortly. It will take me forever."

"I will come round and give you a hand if you want." Merlin suggested attempting to cheer Will up.

"Do you really want to?" Will asked eyeing Merlin closely, it's the most dull thing to do." He said, "and it will take forever, I never knew I had so much stuff."

"Where are you moving to, nearby I hope." Merlin said suddenly concerned.

"Only across the meadow on the other side." Will said, "I saw it yesterday you could only get two people in it."

"Just as well there's only you and your mum then." Merlin smiled, "sorry, that wasn't very tactful of me." He grimaced.

Will laughed "Always the same Merlin always putting your foot in it."

They both laughed, to be greeted by Will's mother Anna with boxes in her hand.

"Hello Merlin, nice to see you, hope Hunith is well."

"Yes she is and I'm sorry about."

Anna cut into his sentence before he could finish, as if reluctant to acknowledge the event. "Thank you. What are you two up to?" she asked

"Merlin here is going to help us pack." Will smiled, noticing the horrified look on his friends face as he discovered the amount of stuff waiting to be packed away.

"That is nice of you Merlin. Well I have you visit my mother for half an hour if you get even a quarter of that packed away I know you are a miracle worker Merlin." She smiled at Merlin and Will as she left.

"Well come on let's get started." Will laughed grabbing hold of a box and throwing things into it.

"Will you can't just throw things in like that, there has to be some sort of order."

"Well since you're the expert show me." Will said

Merlin went over to the plates and carefully put them in a box, and then collected some of the ornaments carefully packing them away in another box.

"Come on Merlin you can do better than that. We could do this in half the time if you used your magic." He suggested with a smile.

"Oh Will I don't know about that." Merlin said "I can't just use it for anything."

"You said only the other month, there is never enough time to practice." Will remarked, pointing outside "we could go and play then outside."

Merlin thought about it, he supposed he had been practicing moving objects recently, maybe this would give him a chance to improve his technique.

"Okay I will give it a go." Merlin agreed, "but I'm only just learning about this Will I've not perfected it yet." He warned. His friend waved away his concerns.

Merlin closed his eyes, trying to remember the spell, he focused remembering it, then opened his golden eyes. Suddenly everywhere objects were moving into the awaiting boxes. Will watched it all amazed, looking at his friend with respect and amazement. Wow he really could do anything Will thought to himself.

The spell continued for a good ten minutes by which time most of the room had been packed away. Will ran around laughing

"That is amazing Merlin, when my mother comes home she is going to think we are a pair of magicians!" he laughed slapping his friend on the shoulder.

Suddenly a cold dread took hold of Merlin what had he done? Will's mother was not an idiot he thought to himself. She is going to wonder how they managed to clear most of the house out, in such little time. Not for the first time Merlin realised that there was always a risk to using a magic spell, a risk he didn't always appreciate.

"Right I think we should empty a couple of boxes Will. I mean she is going to be suspicious of how we have done so much." He stammered.

"Are you crazy." Will exclaimed "we've almost cleared the house out, we can go and play for a bit."

"Maybe just empty a couple of boxes." Merlin argued.

"You are panicking Merlin, why would she be suspicious?" Will asked shrugging.

"It's not your head on the block Will." Merlin said, suddenly picturing himself being led away, condemned for his magic.

Merlin pulled two boxes into the middle and attempted to reverse the spell. He sat and watched the boxes suddenly empting themselves in front of his eyes. He smiled in satisfaction.

"What is going on?" Will cried out suddenly.

Merlin looked around to discover that every single other box was also emptying it's contents onto the floor as well. He jumped up exasperated. What went wrong? He thought.

"Stop it it's going to look as if we have done nothing." Will objected.

Suddenly Merlin was stuck to the floor, not having an idea about what to do? Could he counteract one spell over another he wondered? Merlin panicked being totally unsure about what to do. He sat down dejectedly as virtually every object had now emptied itself around the room.

"Great." Will said, "here's my mother, she's going to be well impressed." He mused.

"I thought you two were suppose to be packing some stuff away for me?" Anna said. "It looks worse than it did, before I left."

"Merlin's fault, it ends up he is not as good as packing as he claims to be." Will said.

"Sorry." Merlin apologised.

"Well the pair of you can start now." Anna said. "You can do this lot tonight."

Will sighed.

"Sorry Will." Merlin apologised, feeling suddenly deflated, sometimes having magic wasn't always straight forward he thought to himself. As he left Will's house a few hours later, he wondered if he would ever perfect it in the way he wanted. Why is life so complicated he thought.

4


End file.
